Future bright for organic Global Hawk workload Published June 25, 2010 By Wayne Crenshaw 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- A team in the 402nd Software Maintenance Group last week had a successful test of software it developed to assess the aft power and discrete controller on a Global Hawk. The unit is basically the computer which controls the power on the high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial reconnaissance aircraft, which provides military commanders with high resolution, near real-time imagery of large geographic areas. The 581st Software Maintenance Squadron team said the successful test of the software sets the stage for the start of organic depot maintenance work on the units here. Organic maintenance refers to work being done by the Air Force itself rather than a contractor. "We are really proud of our team and the job they did," said Tim Waters, 581st SMXS flight chief. "They did it (the test) three months ahead of schedule and 10 percent under cost. This essentially opens the flood gates for what's going to happen here as far as organic repair on the Global Hawk." The test was done using the Versatile Depot Automatic Test Station, which was developed by the 581st SMXS to test a wide variety of aircraft avionics components on one machine, thereby eliminating the need for many different kinds of testers and the associated upkeep on those units. The test took an entire day, with faults being put into the unit to determine whether the software could find the problems. All of the tests went perfectly, said Eric Zieg, automatic test equipment lead engineer. Other members of the team are David Lasater, Matthew Chiasson, Rockie Dyches and Christy Keever. The first unit coming here for maintenance is expected to arrive in October.